Organizational Leadership & Resistance toward the Movement of Change

Over many centuries, vowed religious men and women sponsored and conducted educational communities: schools, colleges, universities, educational centers, Sunday schools, etc. Since the 1970’s there has been a continual decrease in the number of religious vocations, prompting many congregations who once owned these institutions to rethink ways of sustaining their legacy and pass on their charism to future generations. Faced with this membership decline, new educational challenges, and a marked increase in student/client population, the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, an international Roman Catholic congregation of vowed religious educators, successfully promoted the concept of “Shared Mission" to its lay colleagues in order to ensure the vitality of its educational work. The proposed new model prompted diverse reactions within the Institute. This work analyzes the critical issues that can undermine and resist organizational change in an Institution.